Jack Nicklaus once predicted if he would dominate the PGA Tour today against the likes of Scottie Scheffler

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Jack Nicklaus is widely considered as the greatest golfer of all time due to his incredible haul of major trophies.

Nicklaus racked up 18 major titles throughout his career, and 73 PGA Tour wins.

The now 85-year-old was the dominant force on the PGA Tour for pretty much two decades from the early 1960s onwards. Now, the man to beat is Scottie Scheffler.

The great Butch Harmon said that Scheffler actually reminds him of Nicklaus in the way that he goes about his business on the golf course.

The 29-year-old from Dallas, Texas, has won 18 PGA Tour events since February 2022 including four major championships.

While Nicklaus thinks Scheffler’s swing is ‘unusual’, he is a huge fan of the current world number one, and spoke glowingly about him during the Memorial Tournament this year.

The way in which Scheffler controls his irons is eerily similar to Nicklaus in his pomp and the two players are clearly on the same wavelength when it comes to how mentally strong they are.

Jack Nicklaus predicted if he would dominate the PGA Tour against Scottie Scheffler and co

Nicklaus had absolutely everything in his prime. He was incredibly long off the tee and was a simply sensational iron player.

However, has golf advanced to the point now where he would not have won as much had he played in the current era?

Back at the start of this year, Nicklaus was asked whether he thinks he would be as dominant as he once was in the game today if he were 22-years-old.

He said: “I think that any player who has been dominant in his time would be dominant today. I don’t care what sport you are playing; what game you are playing, an athlete who has been dominant will probably be dominant at any time. May not be as dominant because of the number of players, but there are very good — if you brought Byron Nelsons, Ben Hogans, if you brought Bobby Jones, Walter Hagen, I think all these players would have been dominant players. They may not have been– there may have been 4, 5 dominant players rather than one or two dominant players, but they certainly would have been there. I certainly feel that Arnie and I would probably fall in the same category.“

With improved equipment and advanced training methods, it’s safe to say that Nicklaus would be a real force in the modern era.

It could even be argued that, aside from Scheffler, the competition is nowhere near as strong right now as it was when Nicklaus was playing.

Sure, there’s more strength in depth on the PGA Tour now but there definitely aren’t as many world-class players as there were back in the day.

Nicklaus had to compete with the likes of Arnold Palmer, Gary Player and Tom Watson every week during the 1960s and 1970s.

He’d be just fine in this day and age.

Jack Nicklaus vs Scottie Scheffler’s major records compared

The true sign of a golfer’s greatness is his record in major championships.

Nicklaus obviously has the best major résumé of the lot, but is Scheffler on track to at least get close to him?

Pro rata, Scheffler is well on track to get close to the great man over the next 10-15 years.

However, the one burning question is: Will Scheffler maintain his current dedication and hunger to compete for so long like Nicklaus did?

That obviously remains to be seen but if Scheffler continues on his current clip, there is no reason why he won’t be able to win double-digit major trophies and 60 or more PGA Tour titles.